Strzlecki Track #1

The main aim of this trip was to fly over Lake Eyre. However, last year we drove up the Birdsville Track and in the back of my mind I  hoped that after the flight we may be able to drive up the Strzlecki Track this year. The Strzlecki Track (like the Birdsville Track) is a dirt road along the path of an old stock route. The Strzlecki has some bores still running but only remnants of civilization along its length, unlike the Birdsville, which is cut in two by the Mungerannie Hotel with fuel and water available. So 473Kms of dirt road, carry everything you need, no reception of Telstra 3G. Probably the most challenging drive that should be undertaken by a Maggie-type vehicle driven by people of our age.

Most of the early part of the track was pretty good.

The main problems lay in the washways and dips that you can't see into as you approach.

When you look south you can see the northern part of the Flinders Ranges. They seem a very long way away. The rainfall in this part of the country is very low and when you couple that with very poor soil the view is fairly bleak.

Driving was quite a challenge. The road varied from moderately smooth (for a dirt road) to a very rough, corrugated surface and back again repeatedly. The corrugations were about 10cms deep  and just far enough apart for the tyre to sink to the bottom before hitting the next one. When these patches were on a flat piece of terrain we could keep up enough speed to ride over the tops of the corrugations but when they occurred on a corner or in a dip, keeping up speed was very dangerous. Having slowed down, taking a bashing, we then had to speed up again to get on to of the bumps. After about 150 Kms we were all very tired and we stopped for the first night at the ruins of Blanchewater Station. Thought to be involved in brumby rustling in the 19C this station was, in its heyday, a very successful venture. A major flood in the 1960's destroyed the buildings which have never been rebuilt. We arrived at sunset and the sandstones looked stunning.

Bleak, unproductive land today.

The eastern sky at sunset is often beautiful.

We were all a bit tired the next morning so we decided to stay at the ruins for another day. I pretended I was a naturalist and went looking for flowers and birds. These are not flowers but brightly coloured leaves, but they made a good picture.

These are flowers, of course, but I can't find the book to identify them. I always was a very keen botanist.

This chap, a brown goshawk, did not like the look of me. I tried to get closer, leaving a clear path for him to fly away so that I could get a shot of him in the air. He fooled me and took the hard way out the back.

It was my turn to cook dinner and I rather surprised myself (as well as the others) with a casserole which I might call "beef cooked with red wine and mango ginger". Recipes are available for a small donation to the "save the goshawk" foundation.